Defining Moments

In the true sense of the word, I don’t think I’m an Entrepreneur. I was head down, working hard in the electronics servicing industry, and I think the advice my brother gave me was, “You may not have the best technical ability, but even the most… read more

Defining Moments

In 1991 our turnover had reached £3.5 million. Through that success, the current board of Directors invited me to join them as the Customer Service Director. They dangled a further financial incentive and made an offer of 10% of the shareholding which I… read more

Lifestyle Story

Part of my MEO is that I get a salary and a car and that’s pretty much it; until the deal is over we can’t share in the financial success of the company. But someone once said to me that they’d rather be inside an organisation looking out than on the… read more

Mistake To Avoid

Unfortunately in the early days we made a mistake with people. We suffered because we let someone go in the way we thought was right- they were guilty of gross misconduct and it was right for them to leave the organisation. But we didn’t go through due… read more

Secret

The key is people. Recruitment, however, can be a minefield. It’s great if you can employ somebody who walks through the door and from day one, they’re close to perfect. But that is a very rare event. When people come into the company, we coach them,… read more

How I... Guide

We felt that we could probably improve our employee attendance record, even though it was already below National and Local statistics. We introduced something called the Bradford factor. If somebody had taken a few weeks off for a broken limb or… read more

How I... Guide

One of the biggest challenges we had to face as a company was when we changed from a service organisation to putting more legs on the stool. At the time, 99 out of 100 customers paid us in advance which enabled us to buy all the parts and train the guys,… read more

Pearl Of Wisdom

I believe that I couldn’t design a television, I couldn’t devise a marketing plan, and I couldn’t start a company from scratch. What I do believe is that if the television went wrong, I could fix it, I could find flaws with somebody else’s marketing… read more

Success

Back then, the world of computers was very proprietary. You bought your computer from IBM, Digital, Data General or Hewlett Packard, and once you bought it that was it, you couldn’t go anywhere else for support. You had to go back to the… read more

Success

Although the period of the management buy- out was stretched, it actually made us a more solid company. In the beginning because everything we earned had to be used to fund the buy-out we couldn’t be very creative, and we couldn’t try anything new… read more

Support Story

The Managing Partner from our accountants and auditors came to work directly with Croft one day a week, as Financial Director, as part of the buy-out team. We were quite weak in finance, and to get someone like Andrew who’s got so much experience in… read more